Possession is a five-part Sky Original supernatural thriller written by Karla Crome, directed by Storm Saulter and produced by Snowed-In Productions, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jonny Lee Miller, Bel Powley and Sheldon Shepherd. Moving between present-day and 18th-century Bristol and Jamaica, it follows Claudia, a lawyer whose inheritance investigation leads her to Hope Hill, a former plantation haunted by the legacy of colonialism.

Cinematographer, Pedro Cardillo, ABC, explains his creative process on the shoot.

Possession offered me the rare opportunity to combine two things I had long wanted to explore as a cinematographer: a supernatural thriller and a candlelit period drama. The cinematography was designed to create a subtle sense of unease while revealing tensions around colonialism, culture and identity. Geography, rather than time period, determined the photographic treatment: England and Jamaica were distinct visual worlds, while both timelines shared the same photographic language.

A major challenge was maintaining visual continuity between Jamaican exteriors and interiors shot in Bristol, including the police station, law office and Hope Hill. Because of hurricane season, those interiors were filmed during the English winter before the corresponding exteriors in Jamaica. Two recces helped us plan how to recreate Jamaican warmth and sunlight on short, dark winter days.

Hope Hill was the most challenging location. Sitting atop a hill in St Ann Parish, northern Jamaica, it faced rapidly changing coastal weather. Night exteriors were particularly difficult: the steep, muddy terrain and scale of the property made it hard to position machines high enough to light the house while keeping them out of shot. We used ARRI X23s, ARRI X21s and Vortex V8s on cherry pickers. All large LED fixtures had to be shipped from Miami.

Since Hope Hill could not be altered for stunts and practical effects, its interiors were built on stage in Bristol. Cycs outside each window provided the plantation-house views, while gaffer Dave Nye recreated the skylight and sun path to match the later Jamaican exteriors. Large softboxes fitted with Vortex V8s created the skylight, while 20K, 10K, and 5K fresnels and 12- lamp Dinos served as the sun.

Period scenes presented a different challenge. Real candles and fire remained important practical sources, but some scenes needed more control and output. Dave Nye and I developed an old idea of mine called the “birdcage”: small softboxes fitted with NYX or tungsten bulbs, programmed to flicker randomly and hidden around the set to augment the visible candlelight.

For a listed Georgian manor house in Bristol, used for an 18th-century party, we took a classic approach: an air balloon lit the reception room, ARRI X21s outside the windows created moonlight, and birdcages augmented the candlelight and bonfire.

Possession was shot on the ARRI ALEXA 35 with Atlas Mercury 1.5x anamorphic lenses over 72 days, 35 in Bristol and 37 in Jamaica. The final result is very close to the original intention: a photographic language that moves across periods, genres and locations while keeping a consistent sense of unease and a strong visual identity.